Exploring masculinities, power and patriarchy

This presentation draws from a study on the masculine norms central to shaping elites within American all-boys schools, focusing on how these norms influence the practices and relations of love often proclaimed within their brotherhoods. We will explore how these elite masculine norms reinforce power and domination, overshadowing qualities like accountability and responsibility. Through bell hooks’ insights on love, we argue that while these brotherhoods may outwardly embrace and celebrate love, the underlying dynamics of domination within these elite institutions fundamentally undermine the qualities necessary for authentic love. We conclude by proposing a reimagining of these brotherhoods—one that moves away from domination and embraces the responsibility and accountability that true love requires.

Patriarchal backlash is not always primarily – or only – pushing back against progress for women; it is about much more. But then, how is it patriarchal? Sliced into three sections – on Confluence, Contestations, and Cartographies – this analysis draws on a thesis about backlash as the exploitation of insecurity wrought by apparent crises, to re/shape social orders through re-fixing three symbolic sites, namely the body, the family, and the nation. It starts with describing a confluence of recurrent types of backlash actors and projects silencing feminist voice, by exploring their stance or aims in relation to progress toward gender equality. It then turns to exploring their contesting backlash narratives about the three symbolic sites (body, family, nation), which exploit angst and notions of masculinity. This is then followed by a more theoretical discussion on cartographies of resonant concurrence and contradictions in backlash. Reflecting on identification, masculinities, and levels of hegemonic power, the argument is that this fixing of sites re/naturalises three deep-level patriarchal logics – phallogocentric binary (body), hierarchical (family), and categorical closed-systems (nation) principles –which helps us theorise the evolution of patriarchal hegemonies and may inform more strategic avenues for countering of backlash.

Adam Howard is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Education and Chair of the Education Department at Colby College (USA). His research explores how privilege works through the daily practices and relations of privileged individuals and the structures, policies and practices of their educational institutions. He is author of Learning privilege: lessons of power and identity in affluent schooling and Negotiating privilege and identity in educational contexts, and co-editor of Educating elites: class privilege and educational advantage.

Lawrence Martin is a research assistant in the Education Department at Colby College (USA) where he is studying mathematical sciences. He is also studying mechanical engineering at Dartmouth College (USA).

Jerker Edström is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) who leads the multi-country research programme Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). His career has focused on gender, masculinities, patriarchy, sexual and gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. He has led other IDS programmes, such as Engendering Men/EMERGE (UK Aid funded), and Masculinities and Transition (EBRD funded). He has co-edited volumes including Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities (2011, Zed Books) and several IDS Bulletins, incl. ‘Undressing Patriarchy: Men and Structural Violence’ (45:1, 2014) and ‘Understanding Gender Backlash: Southern Perspectives’ (54:1, 2024).

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Deakin Downtown, Level 12, Tower 2, Collins Square, Docklands, Australia